'Smart dust' aims to monitor everything: Hewlett-Packard

In the 1990s, a researcher named Kris Pister dreamed up a wild future in which people would sprinkle the Earth with countless tiny sensors, no larger
than grains of rice.

These “smart dust” particles, as he called them, would monitor everything, acting like electronic nerve endings for the planet. Fitted with
computing power, sensing equipment, wireless radios and long battery life, the smart dust would make observations and relay mountains of real-time
data about people, cities and the natural environment.

Now, a version of Pister’s smart dust fantasy is starting to become reality.

“It’s exciting. It’s been a long time coming,” said Pister, a computing professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

“I coined the phrase 14 years ago. So smart dust has taken a while, but it’s finally here.”

Maybe not exactly how he envisioned it. But there has been progress.

The latest news comes from the computer and printing company Hewlett-Packard, which recently announced it’s working on a project it calls the
“Central Nervous System for the Earth.” In coming years, the company plans to deploy a trillion sensors all over the planet.

The policies and actions that will help move the world to a low-carbon economy and address the large-scale risks associated with climate change
are profound and far-reaching. They require many different individuals and groups to take between them a vast array of small and large decisions,
every day. Today, those decisions are made with only partial knowledge of the possible options, benefits, costs, and risks. Decision-makers are, in
essence, flying blind. Whether acting globally or locally, they lack a trusted decision information infrastructure for mitigation of, and adaptation
to, climate change.

This lack implies that we need a new way to make collaboration possible. In many ways the solution lies literally at our fingertips. The skin that
covers our bodies provides information from ‘sensors’ distributed throughout the body. Nerve endings in the skin gather sensory information and
transmit it through the central nervous system for processing. The body responds with appropriate remedial action to regulate and adapt to
change.

The astronomer Carl Sagan once asked, “Who speaks for Earth?” Soon, the Earth may speak for itself.
...
While Hartwell’s accelerometer gives CeNSE its “feel,” the system’s “taste and smell” are just around the corner. Researchers in the group
are using nanomaterials to boost a standard chemical and biological detection technology (Raman spectroscopy) to 100 million times its usual
sensitivity rates. As sensitivity rises, sensor size can shrink. That could lead to detectors small enough to clip onto a mobile telephone. With a
wave over produce, the sensor might warn consumers of salmonella on spinach leaves or pesticides present in “organic” produce, Hartwell says.

“How do you capture and use all that data?” asks Hartwell. At a typical data rate, one million sensors running 24 hours a day would require 50
hard disks running in parallel to capture the 20 petabytes of data created in just six months. “The amount of data we’re talking about here is
ferocious,” says Williams.

Then it has to be crunched to extract meaningful information. No matter how many gigabytes of data a smart highway might deliver, for example,
“you’re only interested in one bit when you walk out that door,” says Hartwell. “Just one bit: Which interstate highway will take you home
fastest? If it saves you 20 minutes on your commute, that one bit is worth a lot,” he points out.

HP is approaching sensing networks not just as sensing or moving data or crunching it, but from a holistic perspective, says Hartwell. “We have the
networking expertise in our ProCurve division, we have consulting and integration through our Enterprise Services division (formerly EDS),” not to
mention business intelligence, storage and data center technologies. Williams agrees: “We’re the only company approaching this from soup to
nuts.”

Listening to Earth

CeNSE’s first applications will make living on the planet safer and more convenient. But as the network grows, the breadth and detail of information
it gathers could be critical to Earth’s survival, says Hartwell.

“If we’re going to save the planet, we’ve got to monitor it,” says Hartwell. “We have to understand how we’re impacting the planet,” he
says, pointing out that we don’t understand how wind farms may affect rainfall or how a cooling sea changes wind currents. Hartwell imagines people
volunteering their sensors to feed data to climate change models, just as unused compute cycles are unfolding proteins and unraveling genomes
today.

On an individual level, sensing could help people make everyday lifestyle changes: “We have to use this capability to figure out how to change the
way we do things: You can tell the kids to turn off the lights, but it’s going to be a lot more effective if the lights turn themselves off.”

I don't understand why this topic never makes front page when things like bigfoot do.

‘Smart Fields’ Monitored by Wireless Nanosensors and the USA’s Plans for a ‘Smart Field System’

Leading the choir of enthusiasm for “smart fields” laced with wireless nanosensors is the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). In what they
originally dubbed “Little Brother Technology,” the agency identifies agricultural sensor development as one of their most important research
priorities. The USDA is working to promote and develop a total “Smart Field System” that automatically detects, locates, reports and applies
water, fertilisers and pesticides - going beyond sensing to automatic application.

· Current Size: Crossbow’s motes are currently the size of a bottle-top. According to the CEO of Crossbow, Mike Horton, the size is
expected to shrink to the size of an aspirin tablet – even a grain of rice – over the next few years.

There's a most chilling thought in that second video; Creating machines that have te ability to make life or death decisions on their own. That seems
to suggest that a global mindnet, filled with trillions of sensors covering the planet (the first video re. IBM), would also include machines that
police the populaces, which could also be programmed to take acton against a populace based on their programmed rulesets. What the hell kind of earth
is this going to become when their science fiction nightmare beomes reality.

Thanks for posting this. I did read about the smart bugs a few years ago and for the past two years when I am outside I talk to the butterflies,
dragonflies, big bumble bees and lizards.

I saw a bug a few weeks ago that did not look normal and almost looked man made. I went to get a jar to collect it and when I got back to the area it
was gone.

The University of Ga. is not that far from me as the crow flies. We have several airports in our small area and commerical and private flights to
and from the Atlanta and Athens area are many everyday.

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